Ideal Scope for Hacking PCBs at Home

Having one's own oscilloscope may cause pain for one's wallet, but it's a sacrifice we must make to get a fully functional laboratory at home.

Today, life is a wonderful thing for the open hardware hacker and hobbyist. Ten years ago, electronic industry professionals could have only dreamed of development kits such as the Arduino, BeagleBone, and Raspberry Pi. However, today we must face the problem we faced in the past -- building an adequate personal electronic hardware workbench at home.

Even many hardware lovers like me spend a lot of time working with embedded software. This is OK and cheap -- even cheaper if you are a Linux advocate, as I am -- but problems arise when you must deal with a real PCB. Almost all of us own a multimeter, which is great for DC signals and power supply measurements, but what about analog and digital signal scoping?

If you are not afraid of cables or building your own equipment, and if you don't mind using relatively little in signal conditioning and amplification circuitry, you can use your PC audio card and some specialized software in the role of a poor man's oscilloscope. I've been doing this for years, using Linux packages such as Xoscope, which is more than sufficient if all you need to do is capture and analyze signals within a 100KHz bandwidth.

Xoscope oscilloscope over PC audio card.

Unfortunately, this is not sufficient when dealing with a PCB that includes digital devices such as MCUs and/or FPGAs. In that case, you need bandwidths of at least tens of megahertz. Having one's own oscilloscope may cause pain for one's wallet, but I'm afraid it's a sacrifice we must make to get a fully functional laboratory at home. For some time, I've been wondering where to get an inexpensive but functional oscilloscope -- cheap enough that my wife would agree to buy it as a Christmas present. Fortunately, a colleague told me about the last toy he had purchased for his home laboratory.

This was the €239 ($335) Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope, which boasts a 5.7-inch TFT QVGA (320X240) with 64K color LCD backlit display, 50MHz bandwidth, a real-time sample rate of 1 gigasamples per second, two analog channels with sensitivity of 2 mV/division to 10 V/division, up to 1 million points of signal memory, and tons of handy software functions such as FFT calculators. This is just what you need to debug complex signals such as the ones you will find when dealing with Arduino-like development kits.

Front view of the Rigol DS1052E oscilloscope.

One feature that has established this scope as the smart choice for hardware hackers around the world is the fact that you can hack it to a real 100MHz bandwidth by just applying a software upgrade. This came about when some hackers realized that the DS1102E sports the same signal acquisition hardware as the higher-graded DS1102. It wasn't long before a hacked upgrade was released to unleash all the DS1052E's hardware horsepower. Of course, the hacking process will almost certainly break any guarantee you get from Rigol, but I think the fact that the hack is available is worth highlighting.

After learning about the hack, I quickly ordered a DS1052E unit from to my local Rigol distributor, which sent it directly to my house in a few days. In future blogs, I'll provide more feedback about my experiences using this scope while working on my open hardware projects. In the meantime, if you would enjoy unboxing such a beauty, check out the slideshow below. It features some pictures I took when my DS1052E arrived. (I'm so proud of my acquisition that I want to make everyone jealous.)

Until my next column, do you have any questions or comments on the DS1052E oscilloscope?

I own two Rigol oscilloscopes and have been using them since 2009. One of them is a 1052D, which has a 16 channel logic analyzer in addition to the standard oscilloscope functions. The other one is an 1102CA. They are very nice scopes and good value for the price. I especially like the displays, which have very wide viewing angle and can be seen from anywhere in the room. I use the math functions a lot, particularly the FFT and the differential. The logic analyzer work snicely, but I have only had to use it once, because we do most digital debugging with FPGA tools.

Looks like a nice scope Javi - since I have failed to win myself a Tek scope in any of the EETimes competitions, maybe I should get one of these.

Geoffrey Legg commented that "One of them is a 1052D, which has a 16 channel logic analyzer in addition to the standard oscilloscope functions."

In view of the above, mabye the 1052E can be hacked to give you the Logic analyzer functions as well. You'd probably find the hardware is there and all you need to do is make a hole in the case and maybe install a connector..... I've seen stranger things......

@Geoffrey:"I especially like the displays, which have very wide viewing angle and can be seen from anywhere in the room"

I totally agree. I really love the display that Rigol mounts in these low-end scopes. The waveform viewing experience is very similar to the one you get with more expensive units from mainstream brands.

"The logic analyzer works nicely, but I have only had to use it once, because we do most digital debugging with FPGA tools"

@David: "maybe the 1052E can be hacked to give you the Logic analyzer functions as well. You'd probably find the hardware is there and all you need to do is make a hole in the case and maybe install a connector....."

I've made a quick web search and I cannot find anything about upgrading to logic analyzer, but the DS1052E plastic case is the same that the used for DS1102D -- under the display, you can see where the logic analyzer port should be.

If I find more information about this hack, I'll give you feedback ;-)